Donald Trump with a ''peace plan,'' Putin's favorite in Washington, and people killed by Russians in Ukraine
Читати українською:
A man named Kirill Dmitriev is the new favorite of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Kirill Dmitriev is the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a Russian official under U.S. sanctions. According to The Insider, Dmitriev also sits on the supervisory boards of Gazprombank, Rostelecom, Alrosa, Transneft, and Russian Railways (RZD).
But he knows how to speak the language of Americans – both literally and in terms of business interests. He has a Western background – he worked at Goldman Sachs in New York and at McKinsey & Company in Los Angeles, Moscow, and Prague. Also, importantly for Putin – he was born in Kyiv and once headed a fund owned by Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Ukrainian media also recall that Putin's current favorite was involved in a real estate scam in Kyiv called "Olympic Park." So, Putin's envoy has left his mark in Ukraine too.
Of course, we don't know exactly what proposals Putin's "messenger" brought to Donald Trump. But we can assume that the Russian leader is trying to push the U.S. president into a geopolitical flip – one where the U.S. moves its chess piece onto Russia's board. Donald Trump has asked people not to call Putin by unpleasant names. So here are just the facts: Vladimir Putin – a KGB officer and former head of the FSB (those are facts, not emotionally charged words) – shows remarkable cynicism in choosing his new favorite.
Kirill Dmitriev doesn't just have a Western education. He was born in Kyiv, but now works for the Russian "non-dictator" (according to the White House's classification). And now, Putin plans to kill Ukrainians with the help of this Kyiv-born figure. KGB methods don't change.
Most likely, Putin is offering unlimited commercial, resource-based, and geopolitical benefits for the U.S. – and personally for Donald Trump – in exchange for cooperation with Russia. The seasoned KGB officer Putin surely knows which buttons to press when talking to Trump and may be ready to offer everything – from promises of Russia handing over all its rare earth metals to a geopolitical pivot away from China toward the U.S...
It's quite likely that the Russian leader is playing a game with Xi Jinping, one that in Russian and Chinese intelligence circles is called "playing the sucker". And why not – if it helps beat the U.S. as a global superpower and isolate it behind two oceans as a regional power in North America? In my opinion, the localization of the U.S. is one of the key items in the plan to reshape the world in favor of the China-Russia bloc.
We don't know the details of Russia's proposals to the American president. But we do know this: Putin's envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, speaking through American media, declared that Russia and Putin "want lasting peace in Ukraine." Notably, these words were accompanied (perhaps to make a stronger point) by Russian missile strikes on civilian neighborhoods in Ukrainian cities.
Putin's representative Dmitriev repeated his boss's mantras in the U.S. – on Fox News, no less – about the desire to achieve "peace" in Ukraine. The only thing Dmitriev failed to mention is that what's meant is the "Russian peace", the price of which has long been clear and constantly repeated by Putin: the destruction of the Ukrainian state and the absorption of surviving, relatively loyal Ukrainians into the "Russian people."
Kirill Dmitriev on Fox News Screenshot from Fox News broadcast
Simultaneously with Dmitriev's peace rhetoric on U.S. television, Russia launched ballistic missiles with cluster warheads at Kryvyi Rih. Reminder: cluster munitions are used for maximum impact on human targets. The Russians hit a densely populated area precisely for that reason. As of now, 19 civilians have been confirmed killed, including 9 children. More than 72 people were injured. Unfortunately, this number is likely to grow – as it always does when bodies are found in the rubble, or the severely wounded die in hospitals.
Image by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine
This is the parallel "diplomacy" of the Kremlin – talk about peace through their envoy in the U.S., and kill civilians with ballistic missiles in Ukraine. Putin hopes that this "synergy" will allow him to end the war on his own terms. So, it's not surprising that Russia attacks Ukrainian cities precisely while Dmitriev is on U.S. airwaves spreading Russian disinformation about wanting peace.
Photo: Kryvyi Rih. Aftermath of the Russian attack on civilians in Kryvyi Rih, April 4, 2025. Photo by Internet.
A Question for Donald Trump
In light of all this, I have a question for U.S. President Donald Trump:
Is this the kind of "peace" you support – one that includes the physical destruction of the Ukrainian state and the killing of Ukrainians?
After all, according to Vladimir Putin, this is the kind of "peace" that should reign over the ashes of a Russia-occupied Ukraine.
Is this the form of "peace" – really a military genocide of Ukrainians – that America is negotiating with Russia?
Through its special envoys – Steve Witkoff, who delivers gifts to Trump, and Kirill Dmitriev, who presents Putin's proposals?
Americans, remember: Your country helped disarm Ukraine
Amid these grim reflections, Ukrainians must remind the world that in 1994, Ukraine fully gave up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union. The U.S. played a key role in facilitating the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, in which the U.S. and the U.K. provided "assurances," and Russia gave guarantees regarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
It's also worth recalling – at a time when Russians are killing civilians, including women and children in Ukraine – that in 2010, the U.S. administration at the time forced Ukraine to hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to Russia and the U.S. This cut off Ukraine's ability to develop deterrent weapons in the event of a Russian invasion.
As we now understand, Ukraine's own defense capabilities would have been a much stronger security guarantee than relying on the changing leadership in the White House. Yes, the U.S. helped disarm Ukraine. And the world must remember this – especially now, when the fate of Ukraine is being decided behind its back, as U.S. and Russian leaders negotiate future cooperation and geopolitical deals – deals that, most likely, will fail just like the Budapest Memorandum did.
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